A FORMER comedy duo were among several men who targeted and sexually abused a teenage boy for years in Bolton, a court has heard.

Norman Vernon, now aged 80, and entertainment partner Geoffrey Axford, aged 76, who used to perform as The Vernon Brothers, are accused of repeatedly indecently assaulting a care home boy when he was aged 14 and 15 in the early 1980s.

Alongside them in the dock at Bolton Crown Court is 73-year-old Kenneth Platt, who is also accused of indecently assaulting the same boy at around the same time.

Vernon, of Kirkwall Drive, The Haulgh; Axford, of Fordham Grove, Bolton and Platt, of Wigan Road, Bolton, each deny four counts of indecent assault.

David Toal, prosecuting, told the jury of eight men and four women how the alleged abuse came to the attention of the police in late 2013 after the victim confided in his partner and psychologist.

The court heard that in the early 1980s the man was aged 14 to 15 and living at Washacre Children’s Home in Westhoughton.

But at weekends and in holiday periods he would go to stay with his mother, where his lifestyle was difficult and unstable.

“He would be walking around the streets of Bolton and, at times, begging for money,” said Mr Toal.

The boy came to the attention of a number of men, several of whom are now dead, who went on to abuse him, the court was told.

“You may think it is very similar to a situation of a young boy acting as a rent boy,” Mr Toal told the jury.

The court was told that the first man to abuse the teenager was called Malcolm Lord, who worked at an elderly person’s care home near the boy’s weekend home.

Mr Toal said after seeing the boy playing in the street Lord, who has since died, befriended him, began grooming him and invited the teenager into his office, where they would have sex.

“When he would invite me back at night time he took advantage of me not knowing about sexual behaviour and things like that,” the alleged victim told police in a videotaped interview shown in court.

He said the abuse continued at Lord’s office and the older man’s home in Deane Church Lane for four years.

At around the same time the boy also came to the attention of a man he knew as Neville, whom he described as “chicken hunting” (cruising the streets for young boys to pick up) and who spotted him in Bolton town centre. He said he took him back to his flat in Mere Gardens where they would have sex.

Mr Toal said “Neville” also took the teenager to a flat at Fernstead, Deane, where they would meet up with the apartment’s tenant, David Stretton, a man he named as Tom Blakeman and the defendant Kenneth Platt.

“Whilst at this flat (he) would be regularly and systematically abused by all four men,” said Mr Toal, who added that each man would take the boy into the bedroom, where he would be subjected to a variety of sexual acts.

“For doing what he was doing with the males (the boy) would be given cigarettes and money from time to time by way of payment,” said Mr Toal.

The alleged victim also described being abused by two men whom he believed to be brothers and he knew as Geoff and Norman Vernon.

“They are not, in fact, brothers,” said Mr Toal.

“Both of them admit that they used to have a double act in the entertainment industry in which they played roles as brothers.”

The court heard that Geoffrey Axford used pick up the 14-year-old boy near Moor Lane bus station in his Jaguar or Daimler car and drive him back to his home in the Darcy Lever area.

The teenager, who would go to the house on weekdays, would be sexually abused and given money before being taken back to the town centre.

“He wouldn’t let me come up at the weekends because he was performing in the pubs and clubs in Bolton,” said the complainant.

Mr Toal said Axford also introduced the boy to his comedy partner, Vernon, who engaged in sexual activity with him as well.

“The sexual incidents were always separate and he was never abused by the defendants at the same time,” he said, adding that the abuse occurred regularly for three years.

“He stopped seeing both men when he was 17 years of age and since that time has never seen them again.”

The alleged victim said he only realised he was being abused when he reached his late teens.

“I started watching the news and heard about abusers abusing children. I began to realise these men had done this to me,” he said.

Platt, Vernon and Axford were arrested and, when questioned by police, denied abusing the boy.

In court, Clare Ashcroft, for Platt, said he admitted he engaged in sexual activity, by mutual consent, with the alleged victim when the boy was aged 16 or 17, but claimed it had only been over a five week period and not when the boy was younger.

Philip Andrews, defending Vernon and Andrew Nuttall, for Axford, said they deny ever having met the complainant.

“The allegations are wholly untrue – they are made up,” said Mr Nuttall.

The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.